Among the victims was Mvuleni Fana, who was walking home from football practice when she was gang raped by four men who told her they would make her “a real woman” before beating her and leaving her for dead.

India protests against sexual violence

Several others have been murdered in the same attacks, including two women raped, tortured, tied up and shot in the head in South Africa in 2007.

There are no formal statistics available on corrective rape, which campaigners believe is reported even less frequently than other forms of sexual assault in India because of the frequent involvement of family members.An Indian gay rights activist holds a poster during a protest against a ban on the re-criminalisation of gay sex, in Kolkata in 2013

A group called LGBT Collective in the southern state of Telangana have recorded 15 corrective rapes there in last five years.

“We are sure there are many more cases, but they go unreported,” Vyjayanti Mogli told the Times of India.

“We came across such cases not because they reported the rape, but because they sought help to flee their homes.”

He said cousins are often chosen by families to carry out the assault, which may be followed by forced marriage.Indian LGBT activists hold placards as they demonstrate against the Supreme Court’s reinstatement of Section 377.

Homosexuality is taboo in many parts of India and legal rights for LGBT people regressed in 2013, when the Supreme Court reinstated a Victorian law dating back to the British Empire criminalising gay sex.

Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code bans “carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal”.

The offence is punishable by up to 10 years in prison, although no convictions have been recorded in recent years.